San Mateo County

Carmel man snaps photo of rare black flamingo

By MATT DAVENPORT, Monterey Herald Correspondent

Posted:
03/13/2014 12:09:54 PM PDT

Updated:
03/13/2014 12:16:15 PM PDT

This photograph, taken by Don Presser of Carmel, shows what could be the world's only "documented" black flamingo, in a salt pond in Eilat, Israel. Other photos have been taken in the Middle East of what is believed to be the same bird. (DAN PRESSER/Contributed photo)

When he couldn't find any snakes on a desert plain, a Carmel man turned his camera lens to a salt pond and captured an even rarer sight -- a black-feathered flamingo.

Don Presser, 70, photographed what he said could be the "one and only black flamingo in the world" on a trip to Eilat, Israel, in February. Presser sent the image to Monterey County bird experts who identified it as a rare melanistic Greater Flamingo.

Other photographs of a darkly-hued flamingo in Eilat first appeared on birding websites last spring, and some sites also claimed the bird is one of a kind. It's unclear if what Presser saw is the same bird.

"I think there's only one, but there might be more," he said. "Let's put it this way: it's very rare."

Bird experts at the San Diego Zoo have heard reports of the melanistic -- or darkly colored -- flamingo, although none was familiar enough with the case to comment on it further, said Christina Simmons, a public relations officer at the zoo.

Tim Fitzer of the Sacramento Audubon Society said he hasn't heard of the bird, but he isn't surprised by it. The odds of a flamingo being born melanistic are very low, he said, but there are lots of flamingos out there.

"Anything can happen, you know?" Fitzer said.

Presser, who owns FourWinds Travel in Carmel, traveled to Eilat in the southern deserts of Israel hoping to photograph snakes, but cold, rainy weather ruined any chance of that, he said. But he loves taking pictures of all critters, he said, and noticed a stand of flamingos wading in a salt pond. The black-feathered beauty stood out and Presser asked his tour guide about the animal.

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"He said, 'That can't be a flamingo. There's no such thing as a black flamingo,'" Presser recalled. While the guide went on with the tour, Presser got to a better a vantage point and snapped a few photos. "It looks like a duck. It quacks like a duck. It might be a black flamingo," he reasoned.

Flamingos are famously pink, but they can have a genetic irregularity that causes them to produce extra amounts of a pigment called melanin. When a flamingo has this condition, it appears unusually brown or black and is called melanistic, said Don Roberson, author of the book "Monterey Birds."

Albino animals have a similar condition, except their melanin is in short supply or absent. Leucism is another related condition and a white, leucistic hummingbird has been fluttering around Hatton Valley in Carmel, Roberson said. The hummingbird may appear albino at first glance, but it doesn't have the pink eyes and feet of albino birds.

Melanistic animals are thought to be less common than albino animals, according to information provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University. It could be, however, that albino animals are simply easier to spot, Roberson said.

"That's just an educated guess," he said. In any case, he said, the dark-feathered flamingo "is quite rare."